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Another Major Publication Retracts Two Anti-Trump Stories

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June 28, 2017

Vice Media has retracted two stories claiming that President Donald Trump's White House was feuding with Disney World management.

"Here's the Secret Backstage Trump Drama at Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents" Vice Media's Motherboard site reported on May 19. A month later, the outlet published a second piece along the same lines, headlined, "Behind the Scenes of Disney's Donald Trump 'Hall of Presidents' Installation."

Both stories claimed that there was "behind-the-scenes drama and internal machinations" about whether Trump would have a speaking role in Disney's Hall of the Presidents. According to the original stories, Disney and the Trump team were butting heads over what the animatronic Trump would say at the conclusion of the attraction.

But on Wednesday, two days after the second piece was published, both stories were replaced with an editor's note.

"After a thorough investigation into the sourcing of two stories ... and the identification of several factual errors, we have decided to retract both pieces," Vice announced.

"We are conducting a full editorial review to pinpoint how this source was vetted, and how these stories were approved and published in violation of our usual editorial workflow," the publication's editors said. "We fell short of our standards, and regret the error."

The retraction came a week after CNN was forced to retract a story claiming that Congress was investigating a meeting between a Trump associate and a major Russian bank. Two CNN journalists and their editor chose to resign over the error.